Burnes, Alexander: Travels into Bokhara: containing the narrative of a voyage on the Indus from the sea to Lahore, ... and an account of a journey from India to Cabool, Tartary and Persia ; performed by order of the supreme government of India, in the years 1831, 32, and 33 (Band 2) (London, 1835)

chap. vii. our conductor's imbecility.

189

but the Cafila-bashee wished to know how far it was
proper to deal in such wholesale lies, which had
excited his merriment. I replied in the words of
Sady,

" Durogh i musluhut amez

XJih uz rastee bu fitna ungcz."

" An untruth that preserves peace is better than
truth that stirs up troubles." He shook his head in
approbation of the moralist's wisdom, and I after-
wards found him the most forward in the party to
enlarge on my pretended narrative and circum-
stances. It was agreed that we should first tell the
consistent tale to the Hindoo of the custom-house,
and then adopt it generally; and the Nazir pro-
mised in the course of to-morrow to unfold it to the
minister.

The 4th of June slipped away without any ad-
justment of our concerns, and the Nazir now evinced
an imbecility and weakness of intellect, which there
was no tolerating. At one moment he was whining
out to the visiters a sorrowful detail of our dis-
asters, half in tears; at another time he was sitting
erect, with all the pride and self-sufficiency of a
man of consequence. In the afternoon he retired
to a garden, and returned with a train of followers,
as if he had been a grandee instead of a prisoner ;
nor had he even visited the minister during the
day, so that our affairs were no further advanced
at night than in the morning. As soon as it was
dark, I took an opportunity of pointing out to my
friend the great impropriety of such conduct, for